{"id":21192,"date":"2024-06-18T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-06-18T04:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lightspeedsystems.com\/blog\/lightspeed-product-spotlight-what-you-may-have-missed-while-school-was-in-session\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T14:40:04","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T18:40:04","slug":"lightspeed-product-spotlight-what-you-may-have-missed-while-school-was-in-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lightspeedsystems.com\/ar\/blog\/lightspeed-product-spotlight-what-you-may-have-missed-while-school-was-in-session\/","title":{"rendered":"\u0645\u0646\u062a\u062c Lightspeed Spotlight: \u0645\u0627 \u0642\u062f \u0641\u0627\u062a\u0643 \u0623\u062b\u0646\u0627\u0621 \u0627\u0646\u0639\u0642\u0627\u062f \u0627\u0644\u062f\u0648\u0631\u0629 \u0627\u0644\u062f\u0631\u0627\u0633\u064a\u0629"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Having spent this school year working alongside many incredible Lightspeed district leaders, we know that every one of you deserves a moment to recharge. This downturn in activity will be short. Summer break is \u201ccrunch time\u201d in the IT world, the time for small and large projects to prepare for the school year ahead.<\/p>\n

While you\u2019ve been busy at work supporting staff and students, we\u2019ve been busy listening to feedback, working alongside users and developing our solutions to respond to changing district needs. This post is intended to save you time by providing a recap of the work we\u2019ve done and the work we\u2019re doing to innovate our products. It\u2019s good stuff, so keep on reading.<\/p>\n

We also invite you to dig deeper, reach out to your Customer Success Manager or register to attend a live training session \u2013 sign up here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Learn more about key product updates made this school year and items yet to come this summer for Lightspeed Filter<\/a>, Lightspeed Digital Insight<\/a>, Lightspeed Classroom Management<\/a>, Lightspeed Alert<\/a>, and Lightspeed Mobile Device Manager<\/a> below.<\/p>\n

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Lightspeed Filter | Key Product Releases<\/p>\n

Scheduled Reports:<\/strong> This update saves IT Admins time by providing a list of pre-set set reports that can be automatically sent out to different recipients, while limiting access to student PII.<\/p>\n

Additional resources: release notes<\/a>, filter reporting blog<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

MacOS Easy Deploy with Certificate Management:<\/strong> This enhancement provides hassle-free MacOS SmartAgent implementation and automate SSL certificate updates in the cloud with MacOS Easy Deploy and Certificate Manager. Now, MacOS certificates are a one-time \u201cset it and forget\u201d trust process, streamlining and reducing deployment steps with updated configuration files.<\/p>\n

Additional resources: release notes<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

AccessScan Chrome Extension:<\/strong> Gives teachers an easy way to validate students can access instructional content, and request student access to blocked resources, in advance of the lesson. Increased visibility for teachers and more efficient troubleshooting for IT is a win-win.<\/p>\n

Additional resources: help article<\/a>, video walkthrough for teachers<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

AI Management and Insights:<\/strong> Three new AI-related filtering categories provide IT easy flexibility and control to comply with school AI policies. In addition, new reporting functionality enables districts to easily identify both allowed and blocked AI-related search queries and quickly review AI activity by district, group, and user level.<\/p>\n

Additional resources: website<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Parent Portal YouTube and Social Media Controls:<\/strong> In addition to shutting off the internet for different periods of time and viewing their child\u2019s web activity, with this enhancements parents can allow, restrict, or block after-school access to YouTube and social media, including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and more.<\/p>\n

Additional Resources: help article and implementation resources<\/a>, web page<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Bypass Protection Initiative (in progress):<\/strong> This multi-layered series of enhancements is designed to strengthen and introduce new defenses to keep up with the latest threats and prevent students from bypassing your web content filter. Included in these updates are the ability to restrict sites that share domains, improved SafeSearch access, DNS Bypass Switch, Top-Level Domain (TLD) filtering, and improved categorization accuracy. While each of these enhancements is specialized in handling specific threats, they work in tandem to provide comprehensive and proactive protection and demonstrate Lightspeed\u2019s forward-thinking approach to online safety.<\/p>\n

Additional Resources: blog article<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Lightspeed Filter | Coming This Summer<\/p>\n

Insights Dashboard:<\/strong> District personnel will gain insights into trends and data based on allowed web traffic, blocked bypass attempts, and blocked security requests. These insights will reveal usage patterns, educational trends, resource allocation, and security risks, improving cross-functional collaboration.<\/p>\n

SmartShield IP-Based Policies:<\/strong> Districts using SmartShield on BYOD networks will be able to bringdown VMware costs and increase scalability by applying policies based on IP address range with just one SmartShield instance. This enhancement will also provide an extra layer of security, ahead of user authentication.<\/p>\n

Device-based Policies in Lab Mode:<\/strong> Districts will soon be able have a device-based class or filter policy when in a lab environment (i.e. Esports labs, a library setting, etc.) by mapping student emails to device serial numbers on Windows and Mac.<\/p>\n

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Lightspeed Digital Insight | Key Product Releases<\/p>\n

Risky App Reporting:<\/strong> Three new filtering categories help quickly identify potentially risky apps in use in a district. Categories include: SDPC agreements in your state, SDPC agreements in any state, and None. This feature makes it easier to mitigate data privacy risks, vet app security, and ensure data privacy policy compliance.<\/p>\n

Additional resources: video<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Universal Connectivity Module:<\/strong><\/p>\n